


While I Lived in Your Shadow

by DarkPilot



Series: A Light Long Forgotten [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Benpoe if you squint, Gen, Pre-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers, letter writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-26 15:03:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13238241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkPilot/pseuds/DarkPilot
Summary: The only thing left of Ben Solo was his lightsaber and a letter addressed to Poe Dameron.





	While I Lived in Your Shadow

I’m not going to start this letter with any sort of greeting. This isn’t a real conversation, and even if it were, I don’t know that “Hello” is the best way to start a letter. Besides, it’s your name on the outside of this note. I prematurely hope that you, Poe Dameron, and no one else, reads this.

Where do I begin?

I didn’t address this letter to you because I wanted to blame you or anything. I just thought – and I hope – that you’d be the one to understand.

You were always the son my parents wanted. I think you and I both know that. You’re strong and smart and funny, you can fly, and you’re not a Force user. Me, on the other hand? Not as much.

I remember the first time you met my parents. We were twelve at the time, and you showed up in what you later called the ugliest landspeeder on the face of Yavin IV. I think my dad said something along the lines of, “You’ve got some nerve driving that piece of junk onto my property.” to your dad, and your dad just laughed and said that you were doing all of the driving now.

That’s when my dad looked at you and said, “That’s good to hear. You keep your old man outta the driver’s seat, you hear? He’s a danger to safe speeder drivers everywhere.”

At first, you just sort of nodded and smiled like a kid who didn’t really have any sort of smart comeback. Then, you pointed out the Falcon sitting in our airfield and asked some question about its make. You mentioned the dish, and my father laughed. You hadn’t even been in our house yet, but you got him to laugh. Twelve years in the same breathing space as him, and I’d barely mustered a chuckle out of him.

But like I said before, I don’t want to make you feel like I’m blaming you. I’m not. Please don’t feel like I am.

It’s just that lately, things have been different. Well, more different than normal. Not that we know what normal is. Sorry. I’m getting off-topic.

Lately, I’ve felt something growing inside me. I don’t like that it’s there, but sometimes it makes me feel good. It’s like getting drunk – sometimes the alcohol tastes bad, and the hangover is hell, but actually being drunk isn’t so bad. Or maybe it is. I’ve never actually gotten drunk before. Maybe you haven’t, either, and this is just a pointless analogy.

I’m getting sidetracked again.

If we were talking face-to-face, I might sigh right now. But we’re not. So I’m not.

The truth is, Poe, I’m scared. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, since we don’t even know each other that well. Maybe if my parents hadn’t sent me away, we might have been friends. Maybe that’s why I feel like I can trust you. I don’t have many people I can talk to, and you always just made talking seem like the easiest thing in the galaxy.

I’m going away. Maybe for a little bit, maybe forever. This darkness inside me just keeps growing and growing, and I’m scared of what might happen if I stay. There are times when I want to give in to all that power, and my own abilities sometimes scare me when I do. I can’t pretend not to notice the look on Luke’s face when I go under. Not anymore. He’s scared of me, too, I can tell.

Actually, I’m going to be honest with you. Luke tried to kill me last night. I was asleep, and the darkness had come back. I tried to fight it, and I woke up, and he had his lightsaber just inches from my face. Poe, I was so terrified. I don’t even remember what happened next. All I could see was this hardness in Luke’s eyes and his lightsaber, right there in front of my face. Somehow, something inside me rose up and protected me, and I don’t know it if’s the darkness or not.

Poe, I’m scared. I don’t know what I’m going to do or where I’m going to go now. I just want you to find some way to tell my parents I’m gone. Actually, no. Don’t do that. Knowing my mom, she might find some way to find me, and I don’t want that.

Do you remember that you two liked to cook together? Sometimes, when you and your dad, or just you would come over, my mother would be cooking something, and you’d disappear into the kitchen and help her or something. I don’t know if you saw me that one time, but I remember you dancing with her while you were waiting for something to bake. She was singing some old song, and you were humming along with her. I remember her telling you that you were a better dancer than my father.

I used to hate that you spent a lot of your time at our house with my mother. It didn’t take me long to figure out that you didn’t have a mom, though, and that hate just sort of went away. It wasn’t like I pitied you or anything – just one day, I looked into the kitchen and I saw you two singing old folk songs while you were stirring something, and I didn’t feel mad or anything. I actually felt sort of happy.

I learned pretty fast that my parents liked having you around the house. Given that your dad was away a lot on one mission or another, we used any excuse we could to have you over. You could talk politics and culture with my mother, and you could talk mechanics and flight with my father. Like I said earlier, you were just someone who made talking seem like the most natural thing in the galaxy.

Then there was me, always quiet and reserved and hard to coax into a conversation. Your name was on everyone’s lips. You left your mark everywhere you went, and all I could think was that I wanted to do that someday, too.

I don’t think that someday’s coming anytime soon. It’s funny, in a way. Some planets’ cultures have weeks with seven days or five or twelve or some other strange number, but “Someday” has never been a day of the week. I wonder why that is. I think that “someday” shares a galaxy with “maybe” and “perhaps” and “I hope so”, some other galaxy that our ships can’t travel to yet.

I really don’t know what’s going to happen to me. I keep saying that, but I really don’t. Sometimes, when I meditate long enough to go under, I can see all this darkness and anger and pain, and the thought of it terrifies me. It’s like standing on the edge of a cliff on your toes. You’re so close to falling, but you’re still part of the cliff, too, and that cliff won’t let you go, and right when you think it might be okay, that you can handle being there on your toes right next to thin air, some gust of wind blows by you and knocks you off-balance. Does that make sense?

There’s a voice, too. It calls itself the Supreme Leader, and it _knows_ me, Poe. I’m thinking that if I can somehow find the voice, I might be able to figure out what to do with all this power inside me. Maybe the Supreme Leader can fix me. The very least it could do is help me get it under control.

I don’t want to go under again. I don’t have anyone who could pull me out if I do.

You know, some part of me thought that by writing this to you, I could save everyone else a bunch of trouble. My parents always loved you more, Poe. Don’t deny it. We both know it, and that’s okay. Maybe, if you could stay with them, just for a little while, they won’t notice quite so much that I’m gone. You radiate light wherever you go. Please, just blind them for a little while.

I don’t have much time left. I’m leaving my lightsaber with you. I have this feeling that I’m not going to be needing it anymore.

I’m sorry that I’m doing all this, Poe. Maybe if things had been different in the past, things would be different now. Maybe we could have been brothers. I would have liked that.

Please just remember that I don’t blame you for anything, okay? I learned some things while I lived in your shadow, and many of them were good things. I just hope that they’re not too heavy to carry along on this journey.

 

Ben.


End file.
